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Despite the benefits of the security update, users should carefully weigh whether to install it. That's because, according to some reports, the update can result in serious issues.

"Apple OSX Security Update makes macbook kernel panic at boot," warned security researcher Dragos Ruiu Thursday on Twitter. He later confirmed that other users have experienced similar problems, particularly on systems with Lion/Snow dual-boot configurations. "If you have two or more os partition on mbp MacBook Pro it breaks," the security expert said.

"My advice would be to contact Apple technical support - and see if they have a resolution for the problem. If you suspect you may be impacted by the issue it may be wise to hold off installing the security update until Apple has confirmed if it has fixed it," Cluley said.

Apple's new Mac OS X Lion v10.7.2 contains most of the security patches from Security Update 2011-006, and there are reports that it too is causing issues for adopters. Reports like "After updating to Lion 10.7.2 System now hangs on boot" or "Mac forced me to restart after updating to 10.7.2" started appearing on the Apple support forums.

One user suggests that resetting the PRAM after the update might solve the problem. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.